{"id":15237,"date":"2019-05-17T12:42:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T18:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1806776"},"modified":"2019-05-17T12:42:41","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T18:42:41","slug":"lanco-the-vineyard-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/music-news\/lanco-the-vineyard-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Lanco: The Vineyard Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Alison Bonaguro<\/a><\/span> 1m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

By now you\u2019ve probably already heard the Lanco legend. That a few years ago, while frontman Brandon Lancaster was trying to get his band off the ground but also trying to pay his bills, he was working concessions at Nashville\u2019s Bridgestone Arena. And up walks prolific producer Jay Joyce.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve gotten more credit for that scenario than I should because, man, we were just playing at bars and we were just young guys trying to make music,\u201d Lancaster told me when I caught up with the band right before they took the stage at this week\u2019s Live in the Vineyard Goes Country stage on the grounds of the Regusci Winery. \u201cThis was a huge producer whose worked on some of our favorite records: Eric Church, Little Big Town, Zac Brown Band, and even Cage the Elephant. We were all fans of him as a producer, so I saw that night as an opportunity to tell him that I loved his work. And that turned into him asking about myself and the band, and then the next thing you know he actually threw out, \u2019I\u2019d love to hear your music sometime.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe called him a few weeks later and went over there to the studio and played him some stuff,\u201d he added, \u201cand he liked it enough to actually start working on it. We didn\u2019t have a record deal. We had literally nothing. He offered to record us for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which seems like one of those too-good-to-be-true tales out of Music City. Until you hear Lanco live. Then it\u2019s obvious what Joyce \u2014 and country fans everywhere \u2014 see in the band.<\/p>\n

The band \u2014 Lancaster, Chandler Baldwin, Tripp Howell, Eric Steedly and Jared Hampton \u2014 and I also talked about the idea of playing a stage in an actual working winery, going on tour with Luke Combs and everything that\u2019s happened to the hard-working, hit-making machine. Here are some highlights from our conversation in the vineyard.<\/p>\n

CMT.com: When your goal was simple \u201cmake music,\u201d did you ever imagine that that music would bring you somewhere like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lancaster: The places that music has taken us \u2014 even just in the last two weeks \u2014 has been insane. Much less the last three or four years. Before, we were just guys with jobs that played music. We all had these odd jobs just trying to do anything we could to pay the bills but also have time to try and figure out how to play music. It\u2019s tough to even imagine that you can get to a place like this when you\u2019re just in that stage of starting up a band.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing that this show tonight wasn\u2019t even on your original bucket list, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lancaster: Not at all. When we were starting, I dreamed of playing at the Exit\/In in Nashville. We played across the street at The End, which holds about 100 people. I was like, \u201cMan, if we can ever play the Exit\/In that\u2019d be so cool because we\u2019d get like 400 people.\u201d And I remember the first time we were going in the studio with Jay, my big thing was like, \u201cWe\u2019re about to make music that our families will hear one day, and we\u2019ll get to show this to our kids someday.\u201d So this is so cool. And now we\u2019ve even sold out shows in London.<\/p>\n

And not to mention all the Luke Combs fans who\u2019ve been able to see your show while you were on the road with him. That has to feel pretty good. And it must\u2019ve been such a lesson in how to capture a crowd that big for that long.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hampton: The thing I\u2019ll say about Luke is that I\u2019ve always really loved how he\u2019s like the definition of \u201cwhat you see is what you get.\u201d He\u2019s like one of the most authentic dudes. Just like he was when we met him back in those early days, and even now, he\u2019s just trying to keep it real and keep doing what we\u2019re doing for more and more people. And being around him as a person, he\u2019s the most genuine, authentic person. I think that\u2019s what captivates people. And the songs do not suck.<\/p>\n

How long have you know him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lancaster: The first time we met him was in Memphis. We\u2019d just played a show. And a friend of our was like \u201cHey there\u2019s another guy playing down the street at a bar. You want to go check it out?\u201d So we walk in, and there\u2019s about 30 people there. That was maybe in 2014 or 2015? He hadn\u2019t signed a deal yet. And we had just signed ours, but the ink was not even dry. There was so much we hadn\u2019t done yet. It was very, very early.<\/p>\n

After the show, we just hung out in the kitchen of the bar and then in his passenger van. We drank beers and became fast friends with him that night. So then this year, on his tour, I remember the first weekend walking out and seeing 10,000 seats that are going to be full. Like they\u2019re entrusting us for the whole night. We\u2019re very proud of Luke, and very proud of ourselves. It\u2019s just wild that he is our friend, and all of this is happening for him and for us. It\u2019s just so cool.<\/p>\n


Lanco\u2019s next stop is on May 30 at the Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga, Tenn.<\/em><\/p>\n

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